Technique acquisition on unweighted keyboard

[yuc4h]

My friend and I have been playing the piano roughly the same amount of time. He has an unweighted 61 key keyboard and I have a 88 key digital with naturally weighted action.

I have read some comments before about playing with unweighted keyboard being harmfull to technique. However, it doesn't seem to be so. It appears that my friend learns to play arpeggios, trills, octaves, everything, faster than me having been played on a weighted keyboard always.

Naturally, he plays worse on a 'real' keyboard but he is still alot faster and can play some passages at speeds I can't even imagine.

Any thoughts?

[tocca]

My thoughts... Maybe he practise more and/or in a better way and/or has more talent?

[yuc4h]

In fact, as far as I know, he practises in a worse way. At least according to this forum. Most of the the times he starts new pieces ht. But the thing may be that always when practicing, he aims to play as fast as possible. The thing I aim in my practice is accuracy. However, when playing accurately, it takes much longer to get up to speed.

for the time question: I think we practice roughly the same amount of time.

So, some questions: Should one always practice playing accurately? Can one acquire the desired speed(with control) be by just playing really fast(with less control)?

[pekko]

So, some questions: Should one always practice playing accurately? Can one acquire the desired speed(with control) be by just playing really fast(with less control)?

1. Play it as fast as you can.
2. Play it even faster.
3. Play it with control. Controlled speed should be faster now.

I remember reading something like this from Bernhard or from Brent Hugh's piano practice tehcniques.

If it was Hugh's page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20041024082708/staff.mwsc.edu/~bhugh/practicetips/
or
https://web.archive.org/web/20050212231753/staff.mwsc.edu/~bhugh/piano-practice.html

But be sure to check out this (16 and 17): https://members.aol.com/mccc8888/chapter1_3.htm

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

The reason for why your friend may be able to play fast is because there are much less facets to the property of touch. There is much less resistance and for what may be fast on a keyboard will not be hold true on an acoustic or weighted keys. I would say that to learn the basics on a keyboard is okay, but you cannot aquire a proper technique. Of course it is easier to play certain techniques, but that will not work on weighted keyes. In fact it will be harder to play correctly, because of the already learned technique. As for learning the notes and the beginning material, there is nothing wrong with a keyboard. However there is no way one could aquire a proper technique by practicing on a keyboard. As I said it is very dangerous to aquire improper technique for it is difficult to relearn in correctly. As for the speed, it is easier in my opinion to play faster on a keyboard due to the very light touch, but you won't have that speed playing on a real piano unless you practice on a real piano, or weighted keyes. Hope this helps.

[rc]

Greetings.

The reason for why your friend may be able to play fast is because there are much less facets to the property of touch. There is much less resistance and for what may be fast on a keyboard will not be hold true on an acoustic or weighted keys. I would say that to learn the basics on a keyboard is okay, but you cannot aquire a proper technique. Of course it is easier to play certain techniques, but that will not work on weighted keyes. In fact it will be harder to play correctly, because of the already learned technique. As for learning the notes and the beginning material, there is nothing wrong with a keyboard. However there is no way one could aquire a proper technique by practicing on a keyboard. As I said it is very dangerous to aquire improper technique for it is difficult to relearn in correctly. As for the speed, it is easier in my opinion to play faster on a keyboard due to the very light touch, but you won't have that speed playing on a real piano unless you practice on a real piano, or weighted keyes. Hope this helps.

Excellent, I agree!

Your friend is actually learning with a handicap. Unless he plans to always play on unweighted keyboards, he will be a gimp on real pianos (not to mention repertoire that makes use of more than 61 keys will be off limits to him).

I know this because I spent my first year learning on such a keyboard before getting onto a weighted keyboard, and finding I had a lot more to learn in adapting to weighted keys. Now I'm finding that although my weighted digital is great for fingering, it's still lacking in finer details that I can only practice on a real piano... Trills are much harder to do cleanly on my digital than a real piano, and details of sound control and pedalling that just don't work so well through electronics.

Just so ya know, you might eventually reach a point where you have to practice such things on an acoustic piano.

Though, the digital is still valuable so I don't have to subject my family to my process of learning the notes .

[lostinidlewonder]

Unweighted keyboard reminds me of a Harpsichord type instrument. I do have some young students who learn from these horrible unweighted electric keyboards (some with only 49 keys!) I try not to explain what volume dynamics are because it is simply impossible, but we can clearly explain legato, stacatto touches which are pretty fundamental for keyboard technique. If they master some simple Bach pieces which where made for the older keyboard instruments sometimes the parents are impressed and then invest in a better instrument.

Long term playing on unweighted keyboards will make your hands physically weak and unsuitable for modern pianos. I see my young students (that  practice with unweighted keyboards) who come to my place to play on the grand they complain how hard it is to press the notes down. This can be a big discouragement. But unweighted is ok for those working out if they want to study the piano or not. Cheap to buy, but you get what you pay for, don't expect to refine your musical ear on one though.

[yuc4h]

So, even if the learning appears to be faster on unweighted keyboards, it will cripple the playing on a real piano... Interesting. It seems that everyone here think that it's much better to learn to play on a weighted instrument despite the learning process being slower due to the fact that your body actually has to develop some muscle strength to completely master the technique.

Thanks for your input.